In late November, the new Minister of Treaty Negotiations, Chris Finlayson, reappointed Pat Snedden as the Chief Crown Negotiator for our claims. He also remains for negotiations with Te Hiku Five Iwi Forum. His instructions are to carry on from where we got to before the election. The new government has accepted all the undertakings made by the previous government. Pat has attended one meeting with Ngati Kahu (and the Northland Regional Council) and two with Te Hiku Forum since being reappointed.

•2. Kuia / Kaumatua Ball 29 November 2008

Over one hundred kuia and kaumatua attended the ball at the Taipa Resort. It was held in their honour and to thank them for all their support during the year, particularly over the period of the intense negotiations and consultation leading up to the signing of our Agreement in Principle, and during the two months it took to resolve the issues that arose at the signing. Sincere thanks to our office staff and Te Ikanui Kingi-Waiaua for organizing and running such a successful and enjoyable event.

•3. Meeting with Northland Regional Council 1 December

The meeting we had on 1 December with the Northland Regional Council followed on from a similar meeting we had with the Far North District Council in November. It results from the undertaking in our Agreement in Principle (paragraph 32) that the Crown would encourage local authorities to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with Ngati Kahu.

The meeting was held at our offices in Kaitaia and attended by many marae representatives. Our relationship with Northland Regional Council is much better than that with Far North District Council, although there is still a lot of room for improvement. As such, in order to establish a formal relationship, it was agreed that we work through one particular issue (yet to be decided) and if that proves successful, use that as a model for an on-going relationship. The CEOs of both organizations have the task of following this through and ensuring that the good will and momentum established in the meeting is not lost.

•4. Strategic planning hui 6 December led by Wayne Walden and Kevin McCaffrey

This was another very well attended and successful hui held once again at the Taipa Resort. Our CEO, Anahera Herbert-Graves, provided a very helpful report of the hui which is appended to this report.

5. Follow-up meeting with Far North District Council (FNDC) 10 December

Our CEO and FNDC's CEO and various members of their respective staff met as requested by the meeting of 7 November. The meeting was very positive and agreed to concentrate on one of the many available issues with the aim of establishing a model for working together. Some of the issues canvassed included pollution of various waterways (especially at Aurere, Taipa and Parapara), sewerage system failures, resource consents, over-development on the east coast, the Mangonui reclamation, the Mangonui causeway, the pub at Whatuwhiwhi, the quarry on Quarry Rd. The specific issue is to be chosen has yet to be confirmed.

Underlying values and principles were also discussed with Ngati Kahu clear about ours but FNDC unsure what theirs are. They undertook to meet again to discuss these and draw some up using Ngati Kahu's model.

Application of the Orakei Reserves Board model as a Statutory Board was also discussed.

6. Rangiputa Station

Following the signing of our Agreement in Principle (AIP) in September, the group who had moved in to repossess Rangiputa station resolved to move from the house and return the management control to Landcorp. However, neither they nor Haititaimarangai marae, as the matua marae of that area, were able to move certain individuals from the house despite repeated requests and instructions put directly to those individuals. These same individuals were responsible for the violations at Kareponia marae at the signing of the AIP. Kuia and kaumatua had worked hard to try to help them but the individuals' inability or refusal to adhere to tikanga indicated they did not consider themselves subject to it.

As a result the group who originally repossessed Rangiputa, supported by the chair of Te Taumata Kaumatua o Ngati Kahu, Ven. Timoti Flavell, and me, as the chair of our Runanga, gave Landcorp permission to apply Pakeha law to the individuals if they refused to move from the house.

On 19 December, after the house had been unoccupied for several days, Landcorp, accompanied by the police, moved in and removed the contents of the house. The individuals returned as this was being completed, and confronted Landcorp staff and the police. They were served with trespass notices. After a tense two hour stand-off on the roadside which attracted a lot of attention from passers-by, they eventually withdrew. Following the instructions of one of the individual's marae, Landcorp then took the contents of the house to the old marae at Kenana.

7. Te Hui Topu o Te Hiku o te Ika (Te Hiku Five Iwi Forum)

The Forum continues to take up a lot of our time although we did have a break after the November general elections. It has been a considerable achievement for the five iwi to be able to work together to the extent we have. Rev. Lloyd Popata's work has focused on issues of mana whenua and he has attended Mana Whenua subcommittee meetings in an effort to set up a process so that issues of mana whenua can be discussed and resolved. Progress in this area has been slow.

Te Kani Williams (who is also counsel for the Forum) and I are on the Negotiations Working Party subcommittee who meet with the Chief Crown Negotiator, Pat Snedden, and the Minister for negotiations over Te Aupouri forest and Te Oneroa-a-Tohe (Ninety Mile beach). These recommenced on 15 December. Pat indicated at that meeting that the new Minister wanted to keep up the momentum established by Dr Cullen.

Meeting with new Minister 10 January

Pat also indicated that the Minister wanted to meet with the Forum. That meeting took place on 10 January in Auckland. Chris Finlayson indicated that settling our claims is a very high priority and he will be personally involved. The Forum has been running on a deficit so he undertook to remedy that immediately. Ngati Kahu received our share of the funding several days later. He was concerned to get Ngati Kuri and Ngai Takoto's negotiations underway and to make rapid progress there.

In response to a request from me, he also indicated that he saw no reason why Ngati Kahu couldn't have the $7.5 million for building and refurbishing our marae and papakainga now as an on account payment.

Minister's planned visit in February

The Minister also plans to conduct a two day sites visit around the five iwi towards the end of February. We can plan to have him in our territory for about half a day. We need to discuss the best places for him to visit in that very short time.

Hui-a-Iwi 17 January at Te Hapua

On 17 January the Forum convened a hui-a-iwi of the five iwi at Te Hapua to report progress on negotiations. There was good attendance and the resolutions passed were:

a. That this hui endorses Haami Piripi as the facilitating chair for administrative purposes for Te Hiku o te Ika Forum (the Forum). (This resolution restricts the responsibilities of the chair. This was implemented at Ngati Kahu's request to prevent Te Rarawa presuming it can speak for all five iwi.)

b. That this hui endorses and supports the work and efforts that the Forum have undertaken to date in their negotiations with the Crown.

c. That this hui supports the Forum progressing their negotiations with the Crown based on seeking return of Te Aupouri Forest and redress around Te Oneroa-a-Tohe.

d. That this hui supports the Forum progressing negotiations around Te Hiku o te Ika Whole of Settlement Package provided there is no detrimental impact on individual iwi.

The presentation, delivered by Ngati Kuri's negotiators, was not as transparent and informative as I had expected. Instead they generated an atmosphere of goodwill and used that to get endorsement of resolutions that I doubt most of people present understood, particularly the 4th one.

Lack of transparency was the downfall of Te Runanga o Muriwhenua and I have warned the Forum that they should not try this tactic again.

Meeting with Pat Snedden 19 January in Kaitaia

On 19 January the Negotiations Working Party subcommittee of the Forum met with Pat Snedden in Kaitaia. Several others were also in attendance. In an attempt to substantially improve on the position we'd reached with the last government, we revisited what we'd agreed to last year. Pat is working to keep to what we had last year, or less, so the meeting was hard work. However we are still designing the settlement package and will meet again on 2 February in Auckland to continue working on it.